Fired Millbury policeman faces new stalking charges

Thursday

Aug 14, 2014 at 6:10 PM

By Elaine Thompson TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

MILLBURY — A former Millbury police officer who was fired after his former girlfriend, an Auburn police officer, obtained a restraining order against him, is charged with stalking and harassing another woman.

Assistant East Brookfield District Court Clerk Charles P. King found probable cause on Aug. 4 to issue the charges against Michael R. Healy Jr., 45, of Millbury. Arraignment is scheduled for Tuesday. Stalking is a felony and criminal harassment is a misdemeanor.

The complaint was filed by Wendy M. Hubbell, 42, of Rutland, a retired Worcester police officer, who told police the harassment began after she friended Mr. Healy on Facebook a few months ago.

Contacted by phone this week, both Mrs. Hubbell and Mr. Healy said the charges are being dropped and that it was all a big misunderstanding.

However, Rutland Police Chief Donald Haapakoski said Thursday that the charges are not being dropped. "We're going ahead with this. We're not dropping any charges. I don't know what this guy is talking about," said the chief.

In a voluntary written statement to police on Aug. 3, Mrs. Hubbell said she friended Mr. Healy, who also used a second screen name of Barney McGinniskin. Mrs. Hubbell said when Mr. Healy immediately added her to his Twitter account, she didn't think anything of it because the two had mutual social media friends. But, she became concerned when he started inboxing her a lot and calling her "hon."

Mrs. Hubbell said she clearly told Mr. Healy that she had been happily married for almost 20 years.

"He at some point began telling me he was falling for me," she wrote in her statement for police. "I told him to stop it or I would block him."

She said she blocked him on Facebook, but later felt bad about doing that and unblocked him.

"He seemed upset and told me not to do it again without talking to him," she wrote.

Mrs. Hubbell said when she jokingly referred to Mr. Healy as Barney Rubble because of his fake Facebook name, he started calling her "his Betty," alluding to Barney's wife in the Flintstones cartoon couple.

"I stressed to him several times we were just friends. He asked to meet sometime or talk and I blew him off, ignoring it," Mrs. Hubbell said.

She said it got to a point where she was receiving texts from Mr. Healy just about "every morning, afternoon and night." She acknowledged that she sometimes would text him first.

She said she started feeling that Mr. Healy was checking on her all the time. In her written statement, she said she blocked Mr. Healy again but forgot he had a second account.

She said Mr. Healy, in a text, told her that he didn't know why she had blocked Barney and he was sure she was going to block the second account as well.

She said he told her, "You take care these next few days." She said Mr. Healy knew that she was home alone. She said she was afraid that Mr. Healy, whose former girlfriend has a restraining order against him, would try to find her.

The woman said that on Aug. 3, she made a statement on Facebook notifying all her friends, and especially the women, that if they are friends with Barney McGinniskin or Michael Healy, "he has a lot of issues."

In her written statement in court documents she wrote, "The next morning I woke up to a threatening message from him stating, 'better change your status.' "

She continued, "I feel very threatened by him. He doesn't seem to be getting the message to let me be. I fear he might try to harm me or my child or husband."

Mr. Healy, a former police officer in Webster, Sudbury and Auburn, was fired from his job as a patrolman with the Millbury Police Department on April 4 because his service weapon was taken as a condition of a one-year restraining order that his former girlfriend, Auburn Police Officer Stephanie Lynn Segur, obtained against him. Ms. Segur told the court that Mr. Healy, then married, had stalked and terrorized her after she broke off a two-year relationship on Jan. 1 and began dating someone else.

Contact Elaine Thompson at elaine.thompson@telegram.com. Follow her on Twitter @EThompsonTG